Can an identity be defined for 21st century Europe?

Résumé du document

The European Union requires a political and cultural alignment of its member states to deepen the integration. This 'Europeanization' is the cause of an identity crisis. The identity of the 21st century Europe has the big challenge of encompassing national, regional, religious and linguistic identities. In fact, the potential framework for a European identity under construction has to take into account the multitude of cultures territorialized national and regional, and non-territorialized minorities and immigrants. Ultimately, Europe will rise or fall on the issue of identity, a concept linked to the nation-sate; however, can the ideology of the nation-state be combined with European diversity? How can such a plurality be turned into a common identity through egalitarianism and the maintenance of different territorial and cultural identities as political markers? The EU members efforts to converge tends to consider the future formation of a common identity. Nevertheless, it will encounter many obstacles, such as cultural diversity and a lack of European civil society. The solution might be the creation of a new model based on multiculturalism and 'Constitutional Patriotism'.

Extraits

[...] There is indeed no unity between language, territory and culture across borders. Moreover, the institutional construction of Europe needs to embrace popular will and guarantee people's participation. In spite of this, there is an important lack of a European civil society. Questions are often raised about modes of participation and representation of individuals and groups within the Union. The means of expression of “non-European” residents' need also to be considered. Consequently, Europe is seen by most citizens as a world of elites and not as the expression of popular will, as we can see in the recent rejection of the Treaty establishing a constitution for the EU by French and Dutch peoples. [...]

[...] Many cultural projects have been implemented to develop an “awareness of a European cultural space” since the 1983 Solemn Declaration. It represents an important step as culture is bound to national identity. Thus member states could be unwilling, or at least reluctant, to exchange it. Nonetheless, the Community's cultural policies aim to “contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore” (Art Maastricht Treaty). [...]

[...] Since the European identity cannot be based on national references, it must be linked by essential values such as democracy and law. Jürgen Habermas argues that “Constitutional Patriotism” constitutes the solution to the European dilemma. This concept was elaborated in Germany, in the post-war context, when the necessity of rebuilding the German identity was raised. Some intellectuals and historians created a “revisionist theory” in order to reconcile Germany with its past. Habermas defended the idea of “Constitutional Patriotism” as a mean of redefining the German identity without using national sentiment but based on civic and universal rules, inscribed in the Basic law for the federal Republic of Germany (1949). [...]

[...] Nonetheless, the lack of civil society and the gap existing between citizens and political elites could undermine this process. The European identity is still searching for new points of references. The “Constitutional Patriotism” proposes a new version of identity, no longer based on the attachment to national sentiment, without denying its existence. This approach is very interesting in theory but hard to concretize. Europe's linguistic and strong regional differences constitute a frontier that is hard to cross. Although the road to the concretization of a common European identity may be long, Europeans are already walking it. [...]

[...] Can an identity be defined for 21st century Europe? The European Union requires a political and cultural alignment of its member states to deepen the integration. This “Europeanization” is a source of an identity crisis. The identity of the 21st century Europe have the big challenge of encompassing national, regional, religious and linguistic identities. In fact, the potential framework for a European identity under construction have to take into account the multitude of cultures territorialized national and regional and non-territorialized minorities and immigrants. [...]